


Animation Sequences

by MajorEnglishEsquire



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dark Dean Winchester, M/M, Mark of Cain, Movie Quotation(s), Season/Series 09, Team Free Will, episode coda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-16
Updated: 2014-04-16
Packaged: 2018-01-19 14:36:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1473364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MajorEnglishEsquire/pseuds/MajorEnglishEsquire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>First rule of writer's club: steal from the best.</p>
<p>A <a href="http://supernaturalwiki.com/index.php?title=9.18_Meta_Fiction">09.18 Meta Fiction</a> coda.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Animation Sequences

**Author's Note:**

> Big time spoilers for Supernatural Season 09. Also, [somebody gets partial blame for this](https://twitter.com/Samantha12Jane/status/456261188335046656).
> 
> I do not own the rights to these characters, setting, show, or other quoted works. No harm is intended.
> 
>  
> 
> **I want to give a slight warning for dubious consent.**

Castiel doesn't know how Dean can _stand_ this.

Really? No. He knows it isn't this bad for Dean. Dean couldn't possibly have lived long enough to consume so very, _very_ many stories.

There's just--  
It's overwhelming, now that his eyes have been opened to it. How society is constantly referencing itself.

The Metatron wasn't making shit up when he said the first rule of writer's club was plagiarism. Everything is a copy of a copy of a--

_With insomnia, nothing's real. Everything's far away. Everything's a copy of a copy of a copy..._

_Fight Club_. Right.

Anyway.

He sees echoes of it everywhere. The repetition of aesthetically unpleasant fonts. Fashion trends. Whatever Pantone color is the new black this year. Every one trickling _on down into some tragic Casual Corner where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin_ \--

_The Devil Wears Prada_.

Dammnit.

He's lucky the grace still keeps his brain moving so fast. Every word, every phrase, long and short, is heavy with implication now. He remembers things said to him in the past and can trace back their significance, finally.  
It's not that he ever disagreed with pop culture on the whole. He just wasn't interested. There were so many more fascinating things going on. The way his Father constructed the stars and planets, the nuances of how they moved and what came to breathe and live upon them. He held a true appreciation for Creation. Pretty much as he was meant to. He thinks any angel, besides the obvious few, would tend toward the occasional wide-eyed pause as _M*A*S*H_ quotes came rushing at them unbidden.

The whole bright world in its fluorescent packaging takes valuable little ticks off his concentration, now. At the gas station he accidentally sang aloud a disturbing jingle for something called a Watchamacalit upon sighting one down the candy aisle.

The whole thing reminds him of Dean, obviously, and the years he spent watching his _Back to the Future_ references fall flat at his feet. But they also remind him of Gabriel.

The illusion is painful, the more he tries to ignore it. Mainly because he knows that Gabriel is the other side of the Metatron's coin. As, well, apparently, from what he saw before, with the Winchesters, Gabriel also spent his time consuming television and movies.

And they both became the sort to stuff unwilling participants into their fantasies to watch things play out.

While Gabriel could be cruel, he didn't strike Cas as some whimsical imitator, following in their Father's footsteps or trying to correct his creations.

Castiel balks at the idea that things need to be _corrected_. Screwed up as they are, they don't need to be re-written in a new god's image. It would be nice if they could just play out, as is, without divine intervention or demonic manipulation.

People don't need new hands directing their lives. They ought to be given the power of editing their own stories.

More cruel, still, was to give him all this information, give him one of the most towering representatives of it in Gabriel, display him as his protective older brother, and at the same time, he comes to find Dean.

He comes to find all that vitality and those quick references _drained_ from Dean. Comes to find him exhausted and weary, with anger searing the edges of his bright soul so hot he knew there had to be something attached. Something feeding on it; a parasite with a symbiotic relationship, giving and taking the rage as it built.

In such a short period of time, he was fed these images of a caring elder brother, ready to fight and die for his survival. And that of the livid red mark marring Dean Winchester.

He sees, in this new media library implanted in his unwilling self, reflections of the same stories.

Not just the film adaptations and novelizations of the legend of Cain and Abel, but all those of loving brothers living and dying for each other. Betraying one another. Working together, dying together, rescuing one another at the last minute. Graceful moments and despicable moments. Sick and disturbed sibling relationships, too. Ones who support the other's bad habits or cover their dark secrets.

It gives him a kind of wide view on brotherhood. A new lens through which to view his own. And Sam and Dean's, too, to be honest.

As he plans his next steps, upon his own depth of strategy and knowledge of war comes layers of fascinating twists and betrayals.

They give him an idea. A few ideas. And to this point, he decides to give in to the appearance of assisting the Metatron in fulfilling his elaborate plot.

As an author, he is transparent, and Castiel believes it's for a reason. A double cross, a triple twist. Whatever it is, Cas plans to stand at the other end of the plot hole ready to drag him out to _Miller's Crossing_.

At least this 'retcon' has taught him what a rare and valuable thing it is for his ruthlessness to be underestimated.

It isn't until the final hours before he's able to start implementing his pre-planned suicide runs against the Metatron's followers, that he meets with the Winchesters again.

Dean, at least Dean as he knew him, is almost utterly sound asleep under the Marked Dean by now. He's still there in the dark bruises around those eyes, and in the times he's still able to restrain himself from killing outright.

Sam watches, like he said he would. He tells Cas how long Dean spends watching his knuckles, his arm. His reflection in the mirror or in the day's whiskey bottle.

Dean's continuing to look for himself. And that's something. He hasn't been completely consumed yet. Maybe, when this is all over, there will be a chance of uncovering him again, detaching that... _thing_ from him. Perhaps.

He's still in there. He's still looking.

Cas can see more easily. He can see that stifled soul. He will always be able to see Dean's soul.

In the movies and in the books, when people lose themselves, the ones who love them are able to make them recall who they are.

Failing that, they learn to say their goodbyes before they go where they might not come back.

Armed with this knowledge, Cas approaches the Impala as it pulls up. Sam's eyes dart to Dean where he's getting out of the driver's seat, the looks full of implication. The situation hasn't changed since the last time they texted their concerns back and forth. Cas picks up on that, gives Sam a subtle nod.

He draws his blade and hands it to Sam who is also privy to some of Cas's own secrets. "Some of my group are making final preparations," he indicates the angels across the way, packing and reviewing maps in the shade of a copse of trees across the lot. "Would you help them out in any way you can? I'd like to speak with Dean."

Sam nods. "Sure, Cas." He accepts the blade and pats him on the shoulder before leaving them.  
Can't seem to help his backward glance that actually says more for his fear of Cas's safety than his fear for Dean.

For his part, Dean hangs back without a word, looking disinterested. The angel battle isn't the demon battle and, aside from wanting to genuinely _fuck up_ Gadreel, Dean's made no secret that he's on the warpath against Abaddon more than anybody.

Cas rounds the car. "May I have a word with you?"

"Don't know what you think you haven't been told. You've had Sam keeping tabs on me this whole time," it sounds mean and bitter but almost everything he says anymore sounds that way.

"I have," Cas readily agrees. "I have to know how fast the damage is progressing so I'll know how much time it will take to reverse it." His eyes wander to their surroundings as he speaks, his warrior's eyes still seeking the best points of concealment, his new movie memories tripping over gruff goodbyes and aloof partings between characters who regret it later.

"What damage?" Dean nearly sneers. "I feel fine," he says in his emptiest voice.

Cas notes that his eyes don't move anywhere. He's deadly enough at this point that, should anything appear to threaten him, he'd run it down without thought or hesitation, no preparation necessary.

Castiel purses his lips and looks closely at Dean. Still, nothing about him flinches away or avoids the inspection. It's so inhuman as to be unsettling.

He breathes deep one time and reaches up both hands to hover beside Dean's head. "I'd like to see something, just for a moment, and then you can both be on your way. Is that alright, Dean?"

Just a short pause, a small hesitation. He doesn't want to be touched. Cas knows that, at this point, he has to steel himself for such a thing. At this point, closeness is distasteful, if not an outright prelude to violence.

"'Kay. Fine." Dean drops his hands from his pockets to his sides, though, where they could more easily reach for one of his concealed weapons.

They're of a similar height, but Cas tugs with just enough pressure to bring Dean down, on the level, close.

He takes this opportunity to look into Dean's eyes as closely as he can. Humans are fond of that whole 'windows to the soul' trope but it's Dean's _mind_ , his brightness and intelligence, that Cas wants to see somewhere in their depths.

The Dean who cares. Who would balk at this touch and this closeness for another reason.

When Cas thinks he sees it is when he moves in.

His lips move on Dean's unresponsive ones. A few, short, gentle, lightly-sucking kisses to his mouth before he puts a breath of space between them again.

"Dean, if you can hear me, I'll be back for you." He feels every cliché in every line he might choose to deliver here, but they are none of them any less true.

"I'm right here," Dean says, unconcerned, "I can hear you."

"Maybe you can," Cas concedes. "Maybe you aren't really hearing me." The real tragedy here is not that kisses don't really wake people up from deep, magical slumbers, but that Dean's not even himself enough to sputter, protest, blush, object, curse, reciprocate, or properly respond at all.

Cas feels a sudden repulsion at what could be conceived as an unwanted advance, a violation against the other Dean, the one who would care, and moves to step back and deliver an apology to his indifferent ears.

However, as he does, Dean's fingers flash out.

His left hand, the one without the mark on the arm, grips his hand as it pulls away.

And Dean's eyes definitely had _not_ been that lively a green a second ago.

"Cas," Dean goes very still. A shocked expression surfaces, something other than the blank face or sneering anger that's been stuck on his face all the weeks that they've been back in contact.

They don't move, Cas doesn't try to tug his hand from the grip. He chooses his words fast and aims to get the clearest response possible while he can.

"Dean, did you hear me?"

"Yes," he says, almost too quiet to hear.

"I'll help you, Dean, you'll be alright. Just protect yourself. Stay alive," he speaks as fast as he can, but can see the light receding, can feel the fingers start to loosen.

It's like the fairy tales, like the Disney movies, like the shows with the princesses in their pastel dresses talking to forest creatures. He hadn't expected that to _work_. He doesn't know _what_ he expected.

The last word that Dean, his Dean, the Dean inside says is this lost little, "Cas..." before his fingers drop, Dean shakes himself, and steps back.

He seems in control.  
But disturbed somehow.

His eyes narrow at Cas like he can't decide if he's trying to mess with him.  
Or like he heard himself, from afar.

Cas wants to yank his head down. Kiss into his mouth and bring _his_ Dean back to the surface again. He wants to haul Sam back over and make him watch it happen. Abate his worry that his brother is turning into some unfeeling robot hitman.

"We done here?" Dean asks, and doesn't fully wait for Cas's frazzled nod before he turns away and crosses the lot to the angels and Sam.

Well. He didn't get to say his goodbyes.  
Unexpectedly, he got the _other_ reaction.

Cas touches his lips in a daze. He feels himself doing it and can't seem to stop it when it happens. In the immortal words of Kaywinnet Lee Frye he utters, "To hell with this. I'm gonna live."


End file.
